Quotes | dual personalities

At the movies

by chuckofish

VICTOR LASZLO leading the patrons of Rick’s Cafe in the “Marseillaise” to drown out the Nazis’ “Wacht am Rhine” under the direction of Major Strasser—possibly that moment in Casablanca had as much impact on the World War II generation as the news of Pearl Harbor or the eloquence of Winston Churchill.

Or the African Americans in the Alabama courthouse gallery rising to their feet as Atticus Finch passes by below. Or Dolly Levi sashaying down the grand staircase of the Harmonia Gardens to find Louis Armstrong at the bottom radiant as the sun at noon. Or John Travolta lithe as a panther in his white suit and pompadour dancing in Brooklyn. Or Jimmy Stewart being bailed out by his friends in the last moments of It’s a Wonderful Life.

In a world where there are no longer books we have almost all of us read, the movies we have almost all of us seen are perhaps the richest cultural bond we have. They go on haunting us for years the way our dreams go on haunting us. In a way they are our dreams. The best of them remind us of human truths that would not seem as true without them. They help to remind us that we are all of us humans together.

–Frederick Buechner, Beyond Words

I agree with FB, don’t you? We all know those movie moments that haunt you and make you watch the same movie over and over, right? Sadly, I don’t think many people even know how to watch a movie anymore–not focused from beginning to end–giving it all it deserves. Well, I won’t go into that now, but here are some other moments like the ones Buechner describes. Unfortunately, most people nowadays haven’t seen a movie over twenty years old, but maybe you have…

I just watched The Searchers (1956) again for the umpteenth time. Definitely one of the greats. Iconic scenes abound. Here’s one.

Robin Hood (1938)–“I’ll organize a revolt…”

The Great Escape (1963)–“You’re the first American officer I’ve met…”

Life Is Beautiful (1997)–“Camp rules”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RAF87x23r4

The Professionals (1967)–“Lost causes”

My Darling Clementine (1947)–Sunday go to meeting

Awakenings (1990)–“The simplest things”

Ben-Hur (1959)–“No water for him!”

Chariots of Fire (1982) “Where does the power come from?”

I could go on…and on, but I will cease and desist. Turn up the sound, watch them all. You’ll be glad you did.

Oh, here’s one more: The World of Henry Orient (1964)–“Splitsing!”

7 Comments

August 2, 2018

Willful travelers in Lapland

by chuckofish

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“Is it that by its indefiniteness it shadows forth the heartless voids and immensities of the universe, and thus stabs us from behind with the thought of annihilation, when beholding the white depths of the milky way? Or is it, that as in essence whiteness is not so much a color as the visible absence of color; and at the same time the concrete of all colors; is it for these reasons that there is such a dumb blankness, full of meaning, in a wide landscape of snows- a colorless, all-color of atheism from which we shrink? And when we consider that other theory of the natural philosophers, that all other earthly hues — every stately or lovely emblazoning — the sweet tinges of sunset skies and woods; yea, and the gilded velvets of butterflies, and the butterfly cheeks of young girls; all these are but subtle deceits, not actually inherent in substances, but only laid on from without; so that all deified Nature absolutely paints like the harlot, whose allurements cover nothing but the charnel-house within; and when we proceed further, and consider that the mystical cosmetic which produces every one of her hues, the great principle of light, for ever remains white or colorless in itself, and if operating without medium upon matter, would touch all objects, even tulips and roses, with its own blank tinge — pondering all this, the palsied universe lies before us a leper; and like willful travelers in Lapland, who refuse to wear colored and coloring glasses upon their eyes, so the wretched infidel gazes himself blind at the monumental white shroud that wraps all the prospect around him. And of all these things the Albino whale was the symbol. Wonder ye then at the fiery hunt?”

–Herman Melville, Moby-Dick

In case you had forgotten, yesterday was Herman Melville’s birthday. (I toasted him at the baseball game.) And FYI–next year will mark the 200th anniversary of his birth, so let’s make a note and plan a party! (I am serious about this.)

By the way, the baseball game was super fun. Our seats were great and the weather was unbelievably perfect, considering it was August 1 in St. Louis! Cool, clear and a nice breeze! The wee babes did great for a couple of innings…and Lottie even sat on my lap for a good long while.

Screen Shot 2018-08-01 at 11.26.38 PM.png …but the 2nd inning was incredibly long and Lottie lost it after awhile.

Both fingers in her nose and crying!

They left an hour and a half into the game, but The OM and daughter #1 and I stayed until the seventh inning (around 10 o’clock–way past my bedtime.) The Cards were in the lead at the point. (They hung on and won.)

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Now it is back to the salt mine for business as usual. Have a good one.

4 Comments

July 26, 2018

“There is no frigate like a book”*

by chuckofish

Since I bought the new/old bookcase last weekend at the estate sale, I have been busily moving books around upstairs after work. This is a good thing to do once in awhile as you rediscover all sorts of books that you have forgotten you have.

I am also trying to improve the grouping of my books by subject, so at least theoretically they will be easier to find.

Also, I am freeing up room in the bookcases in my “office” so I can rearrange/organize things in there.

Clearly I have a ways to go. But this is fun, though tiring, work. In the evening I fall asleep watching one old movie or another and then go upstairs to read. Last night I was reading The Armada by Garrett Mattingly, and it was so exciting that when I turned out the light at 10:45 I couldn’t go to asleep!

…The prince of Condé was unhorsed and his successful opponent, after a look, no doubt, at the field, dismounted and presented his gauntlet to the discomfited prince in token of surrender. The king of Navarre, having pistoled one adversary and taken a sharp rap on the head with a lance butt from another, recognized the seigneur de Chasteau Renard, the standard bearer of the enemy troop he had smashed and, seizing his old companion round the waist, crowed joyfully, “Yield thyself, Philistine.”

In another part of the field, the duke of Joyeuse was cut off by a clump of horsemen as he tried to escape. He flung down his sword and called out, “My ransom is a hundred thousand crowns.” One of his captors put a bullet through his head. For the commander who had ordered Huguenot wounded killed on the field, who had hanged prisoners by the hundreds and butchered garrisons who had surrendered relying on the laws of honest war, there was not much chance of quarter…

I love it when the good guys win.

Well, I am a big history nerd. But escaping to the sixteenth century when things were hard indeed is not a bad thing.

My DP, who you know is also on an organization kick, sent me a box with some old stuff of mine she found in her attic clean up (and some baby clothes for the wee laddie that belonged to his pater.) She included a college exam of mine (how drole!) so you can see my interests haven’t changed all that much…

Zut alors! Anyway, onward and upward. Happy Thursday!

*Emily Dickinson

6 Comments

July 24, 2018

A wretch like me

by chuckofish

Today is the birthday of the great John Newton (1725–1807), the English Anglican clergyman who once served as a sailor in the Royal Navy and later as the captain of slave ships.

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Eventually he was “saved” and he became ordained as an evangelical Anglican cleric, serving Olney, Buckinghamshire for two decades. He opposed the slave trade, allying with William Wilberforce, leader of the Parliamentary campaign to abolish it. He lived to see the British passage of the Slave Trade Act in 1807.

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He is perhaps most famous for writing hymns, including the ever-popular Amazing Grace and Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken. Let’s all take a moment.

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I must note that Newton is not honored with a feast or fast on the Episcopal Church calendar. All I can say is, quelle typical.

3 Comments

July 18, 2018

Mid-week mayhem

by chuckofish

The wee babes came over last night to celebrate their Pappy’s birthday (after a busy day at the salt mine) so I don’t have much for this post. Luckily, the boy came through with some great pics of the busy babes at our house:

Phew. I passed out after they went home.

Did you read this? Very interesting.

You will be blessed, you who plant seed by all the banks of the streams, you who let your ox and donkey graze. [Isa 32:20 NET]

Never mind whereabouts your work is. Never mind whether it be visible or not. Never mind whether your name is associated with it. You may never see the issues of your toils. You are working for eternity. If you cannot see results here in the hot working day, the cool evening hours are drawing near, when you may rest from your labors and then they will follow you. So do your duty, and trust God to give the seed you sow “a body as it hath pleased Him.”

—Alexander McLaren (1826-1910)

4 Comments

July 11, 2018

“Where’s Papa going with that Ax?”

by chuckofish

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“But we have received a sign, Edith—a mysterious sign. A miracle has happened on this farm. There is a large spider’s web in the doorway of the barn cellar, right over the pigpen, and when Lurvy went to feed the pig this morning, he noticed the web because it was foggy, and you know how a spider’s web looks very distinct in a fog. And right spang in the middle of the web there were the words ‘Some Pig.’ The words were woven right into the web. They were actually part of the web, Edith. I know, because I have been down there and seen them. It says, ‘Some Pig,’ just as clear as clear can be. There can be no mistake about it. A miracle has happened and a sign has occurred here on earth, right on our farm, and we have no ordinary pig.”

“Well”, said Mrs. Zuckerman, “it seems to me you’re a little off. It seems to me we have no ordinary spider.”

–E.B. White, Charlotte’s Web

Today is the birthday of Elwyn Brooks White (July 11, 1899 – October 1, 1985) who was an American writer. He wrote for The New Yorker and had some success writing for children. You might recall that he won the Laura Ingalls Wilder Medal from the U.S. professional children’s librarians in 1970. Of course, they’ve changed the name of the medal now. Given time, I have no doubt they’ll find something offensive in Charlotte’s Web.

Well, it’s still one of my favorites. It may be time to dust it off and read it again.

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2 Comments

June 28, 2018

“For love of unforgotten times”*

by chuckofish

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oh antic God

return to me

my mother in her thirties

leaned across the front porch

the huge pillow of her breasts

pressing against the rail

summoning me in for bed.

I am almost the dead woman’s age times two.

I can barely recall her song

the scent of her hands

though her wild hair scratches my dreams

at night. return to me, oh Lord of then

and now, my mother’s calling,

her young voice humming my name.

–Lucille Clifton

June 26 was the 30th anniversary of our mother’s death. As a day it doesn’t mean that much to me, because I think of her every day.

I see her in me and in my children and in other people. I read her books and wear her jewelry. I sometimes get out her dishes and use them. I watch movies that we watched together. I am reminded of what she said and thought about things.

I went to the memorial service of a 96-year old friend the other day. Her adult granddaughter spoke lovingly about her and related how when she was a child, she would visit her grandparents in the summer. She would go to the grocery store with her grandmother, who would drive with her hand on her granddaughter’s leg. I thought of my mother and of myself, who did the same thing (and still do sometimes!) with our children–that wordless pat of affection saying, I’m so happy you are here with me.

“We ourselves shall be loved for awhile and forgotten. But the love will have been enough; all those impulses of love return to the love that made them. Even memory is not necessary for love. There is a land of the living and a land of the dead and the bridge is love, the only survival, the only meaning.”

–Thornton Wilder, The Bridge of San Luis Rey

*Robert Louis Stevenson, from “To My Mother”

4 Comments

June 27, 2018

Wednesday round-up

by chuckofish

So did you read about the brouhaha over Laura Ingalls Wilder’s classic Little House on the Prairie series?

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A division of the American Library Association voted unanimously last week to strip Laura Ingalls Wilder’s name from a major children’s literature award over concerns about how the author referred to Native Americans and blacks. Funnily enough, I bought a hardback copy of Little House on the Prairie at an estate sale last Saturday. I started reading it on Sunday and I have to say I was impressed with the beauty and simplicity of the writing.

“In the West the land was level, and there were no trees. The grass grew thick and high. There the wild animals wandered and fed as though they were in a pasture that stretched much farther than a man could see, and there were no settlers. Only Indians lived there.”

Haven’t these PC-obsessed librarians ever heard of context?

I say, “Phooey!” to the American Library Association.

It may be time to road trip down to Mansfield, Missouri to see the “House on Rocky Ridge Farm”–where Laura Ingalls Wilder and her husband Almanzo lived and where she wrote her books.

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There is a museum there as well. Mansfield is located in the Ozarks on the south edge of the Salem Plateau. It is a 3.5 hour drive from St. Louis. Branson–which is not on my bucket list–is a little over an hour from there.

On the movie front the OM and I watched Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954) last week when it was on TCM and I thoroughly enjoyed it. That dance sequence at the barn-raising is superb, as is the subsequent fight-dance. It is so appropriately athletic. All that stomping!

Wow. Sure looks like fun.

Anyway, you might want to check it out.

And speaking of drama, thunder storms here lately have been quite theatrical. This was how the sky looked as I drove home yesterday.

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I was reminded of the night of June 28, 1969 when a severe storm with winds of near tornadic force struck the St. Louis riverfront. The riverboat restaurant Becky Thatcher,

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with her barge and a replica of the Santa Maria (not kidding) alongside, broke loose and drifted several miles downstream, safely clearing two bridges, before crashing into the Monsanto dock on the Illinois side. One hundred restaurant patrons were aboard at the time and all were rescued by the towboat Larrayne Andress and taken back to St. Louis, where they were safely landed at the Streckfus wharfboat. The Santa Maria, we are told, sunk like a tub.

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Quelle flyover weather drama.

Well, try to take time to smell the flowers and enjoy the week. Read something controversial–like Little House on the Prairie!

8 Comments

June 19, 2018

“Cheer up now, you faint-hearted warrior…”*

by chuckofish

Today is the birthday of Charles Haddon Spurgeon (June 19, 1834 –-January 31, 1892) who was an extraordinary English preacher. Theologically he was a Calvinist, denominationally he was a Baptist, and he said, “if I am asked what is my creed, I reply, ‘It is Jesus Christ.'” When he died in 1892, London went into mourning. Nearly 60,000 people came to pay homage during the three days his body lay in state at the Metropolitan Tabernacle. Some 100,000 lined the streets as a funeral parade two miles long followed his hearse from the Tabernacle to the cemetery. Flags flew at half-staff and shops and pubs were closed.

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Spurgeon’s Metropolitan Tabernacle today

Spurgeon remains highly influential among Christians of various denominations among whom he is still known as the “Prince of Preachers.”

I can attest to the fact that he is alive and well on Instagram.

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I am no lover of memes and quotes taken out of context, but I have to admit, I like a little Spurgeon in my Instagram feed!

Interesting flyover tie-in: William Jewell College in Liberty, Missouri purchased Spurgeon’s 5,103-volume library collection for £500 ($2500) in 1906. The collection was purchased by Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Kansas City, Missouri in 2006 for $400,000 and can be seen on display at the Spurgeon Center on the campus of Midwestern Seminary.

*”…Not only has Christ traveled the road, but He has defeated your enemies.” (CS)

3 Comments

June 18, 2018

“See! the streams of living waters, springing from eternal love”*

by chuckofish

It’s tiger lily time in flyover country. They are everywhere! I do love these heat-loving beauties. And, boy, this weekend was a hot one!

I went to three estate sales (no luck) and did a little shopping of the home-store variety. I went to church. Other than that, it was strictly inside for me this weekend: I yakked on the phone and worked on some inside projects. It warmed my heart that daughter #1 in Mid-MO went estate-saleing and was more successful than I.

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I finished reading The Bondwoman’s Narrative, a 19th century novel by Hannah Craft and possibly the first novel written by an African-American woman. (Daughter #2 had left it at home for me.) In 2013 Crafts’ identity was documented as Hannah Bond, an enslaved African-American woman on the plantation of John Wheeler and his wife Ellen in Murfreeboro, North Carolina. Bond served there as a lady’s maid to Ellen Wheeler, and escaped about 1857, settling finally in New Jersey. Here’s a review of this very interesting and well-written book by the great Hilary Mantel in the London Review of Books.

I should mention that yesterday, besides being Father’s Day, was also Bunker Hill Day, which commemorates the battle of Bunker Hill on June 17. It is also the birthday of our maternal grandfather, who was always known as Bunker because he was born on Bunker Hill Day in 1900.

Here’s an appropriate word from old Henry David Thoreau in honor of Bunker:

The fishermen sit by their damp fire of rotten pine wood, so wet and chilly that even smoke in their eyes is a kind of comfort. There they sit, ever and anon scanning their reels to see if any have fallen, and, if not catching many fish, still getting what they went for, though they may not be aware of it, i.e. a wilder experience than the town affords.

(December 26, 1856)

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Today is a busy day for me and I have to pick up the wee babes and their parents at the airport tonight at 9:00 pm–way past my bedtime!

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All in a day’s work.

Have a good one.

*Hymn 522, John Newton; the painting is by N.C. Wyeth, “Thoreau Fishing”

5 Comments

dual personalities

Category: Quotes

August 15, 2018

At the movies

by chuckofish

August 2, 2018

Willful travelers in Lapland

by chuckofish

July 26, 2018

“There is no frigate like a book”*

by chuckofish

July 24, 2018

A wretch like me

by chuckofish

July 18, 2018

Mid-week mayhem

by chuckofish

July 11, 2018

“Where’s Papa going with that Ax?”

by chuckofish

June 28, 2018

“For love of unforgotten times”*

by chuckofish

June 27, 2018

Wednesday round-up

by chuckofish

June 19, 2018

“Cheer up now, you faint-hearted warrior…”*

by chuckofish

June 18, 2018

“See! the streams of living waters, springing from eternal love”*

by chuckofish